


From the Black

by violenteer



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Bondage, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, Dubious Consent, Forced Feminization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage, Misgendering, Possessive Behavior, Psychological Torture, Survival, Torture, Twin Glitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 6,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12553908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violenteer/pseuds/violenteer
Summary: A collection of moments between Waylon Park and Eddie Gluskin.





	1. Draw

Eddie’s broad hands moved over Waylon’s stomach and hips slowly, curling around her and squeezing gently.

“Beautiful,” he whispered in a hushed little voice.

Waylon was asleep. His mind had been quieted by a misty drug, something that was probably attached to the belt of a security guard at one point. To make the patients go down nice and easy. No struggling, no fighting. It was a peaceful unconsciousness, really. No noise and no pain and no fear. God, the fear. Waylon couldn’t get away from it. But now he was free.

And Eddie was interested.

He dug his fingernails into the soft curves Waylon possessed, admiring how deep red crescent marks formed almost immediately.

This girl, she was special. Pliant and sweet. She was everything Eddie wanted in a woman. Everything he needed.

“So quiet. Won’t you tell me about yourself?” Eddie asked the open air.

He didn’t really want a response from her. His fingers moved up from her hips to trail along the center of her stomach and chest, up her delicate neck, and finally to her chin. Eddie brought two fingers to her bottom lip and pulled down, exposing the pink of her mouth. The bite of her teeth.

She didn’t stir even for a moment. Eddie’s eyes were hazed now, and he brought another hand up to cup her jaw, gently coaxing her into speaking. Though no noise would come. Just the soft breathing and the sweet rise and fall of her breasts.

It was easy to stroke her tongue, to slide the pads of his index and forefinger along her teeth. She choked when Eddie went too far, and for a moment all was still.

But then Eddie’s hand was coming down in a vicious backhand, striking her face so violently that her neck cracked from the force of it.

“Slut,” Eddie seethed, face contorted in anger.

In his sleep, Waylon whimpered.


	2. Paint

It was a long day that saw the two of them sitting side by side in the cramped little office a hallway down from the gymnasium.

Eddie’s hands were clasped around a small silver tube, fingertips idly tracing the cursive spelling some generic brand’s name. It was a pretty tube. Glittered like new, never been touched by another living soul as far as Eddie could remember.

Waylon was breathing in and out slow. His breath was shallow. He was fighting off tears; his wrists were bound so tightly together.

“Eddie,” he started, glancing over.

Waylon’s eyes were wide and bloodshot. He wasn’t sure what was happening.

“Quiet, now, darling.” Eddie returned.

He twisted the cap off the tube and turned the butt of it clockwise until a mountain of dark red peeked out over the rim. It was a nice shade of liptstick. Clean, sultry. Almost evocative. There were nights when Eddie just pushed the cap off and worked at the tube until all he saw was red. Deep and dark and alluring. Like a promise made to him in a dream finally coming to life.

Eddie turned, now, eyes glazed over. His blood was singing with desire and demand. He pressed up close to Waylon. Their arms, their legs, their hands were touching.

“What are you-,” Waylon tried again.

Eyes flashing, Eddie made a small sound and shook his head.

“Open your mouth for me, would you?” He purred.

His voice was soft, but Eddie’s expression made Waylon’s heart stop. He looked like he was five seconds away from killing every living soul inside the asylum. Like he would have no problem ripping Waylon right in half.

“Now.”

Waylon had already gone along with too much of Eddie’s plans. To put up a fight now would not only be stupid, but useless. So he gave in immediately, parting his lips. Opening his mouth wider and wider, like he was at the dentist’s. Or the doctor’s.

Eddie cooed all the while. He rolled more lipstick into view and then, oh so carefully, the Groom began to paint over Waylon’s chapped, pale lips.

It was a slow crawl of a thing, to be dressed in this way. Waylon whimpered at a point. When Eddie’s thumb hooked over the backs of his bottom front teeth and he hissed, ‘wider’.

But like all things in the asylum, this came to an end.

Eddie seemed satisfied with his work. His eyes kept dropping down to Waylon’s lips. Waylon couldn’t help but wonder how truly ridiculous he looked. But Eddie thought much differently.

“Beautiful,” he marveled.

Waylon raised his eyebrows and thought of asking if Eddie meant that. Because he was… he was very sure that he looked like a drowned sewer rat with clown lips.

But Eddie was drawing nearer. And when he pressed in to mouth at the smooth, vulnerable column of Waylon’s neck, he gasped.

“Please,” Waylon heard himself saying.

“Please what?” Eddie asked.

He bit into the soft flesh of Waylon’s neck. Sucked a purple-red bruise just below his jaw.

Waylon locked his lips and tried not to gasp.

“Please, if you could - just,”

Eddie clamped a hand around Waylon’s jaw. He kissed his own hand before he moved to Waylon’s chin. His cheek.


	3. Sculpt

It’s the still moments Waylon has a hard time dealing with. Eddie is asleep beside him, his breath catching his chest in a constant up and down ride. Toward the half-burnt out light above them. Back down to touch the shit-caked tiles beneath.

Waylon watches it, for the most part. That steady rise and fall. The constant he can trust more than anything else.

They have been working together side by side for little over a day. The two of them have made it to the exit before the exit. Just beyond where they sleep, there are office chairs and waiting rooms and receptionist’s desks. Dead security guards. Blood painting the benign walls of a white-collar man’s comfortable job.

Waylon wants to move forward now. His hands scratch at his sides nervously. They have been taking their time. When Eddie’s lucid, he’s almost too cautious. Waylon thinks he might like it if he isn’t about to snap under the pressure that anxiety builds for him.

Unthinking, Waylon runs a restless hand through Eddie’s hair. He does this. Not for Eddie. Never for Eddie. But for his boys, for his wife. When they’re stressed or tired or sad. Waylon will card his hands carefully, up and back over their scalp.

It relaxes him. And right now, Waylon needs to be relaxed. Eddie doesn’t stir immediately.

Waylon doesn’t know him well enough to know when he’s uncomfortable, but there are signs. Eddie’s eyes will tighten in his sleep. His fingers will twitch. They’re twitching, now.

But this feels nice to Waylon. Up and back, up and back. Sweeping gently through ink-black hair cut into a severe V of uniformity. There’s something in Eddie’s hair that smooths it down into one piece. Waylon works that out.

After a minute or two, the follicles are loose and workable. Waylon smiles just a little. His heart is already starting to slow. Of course, it would only make sense that this is the time that Eddie wakes.

“That feels nice.” He says.

His voice is very clear. Deceptively soft. Eddie’s eyes are open, boring holes into Waylon’s own.

Waylon’s hand stutters. He makes to withdraw, but Eddie catches him short and drags his hand back with two of his own. Eddie kisses his knuckles slowly and gently.

Waylon blinks and tries to hide the sadness that immediately blooms from his conscience. Lisa. Lisa.

“I’m sorry,” Waylon began.

Eddie shakes his head, his brow drawing down in slight confusion.

“Keep going.” He orders.

There’s another kiss placed to the pulse beating rabidly in Waylon’s wrist. He breathes in sharply and tries not to hang on everything Eddie does. But when there’s a sudden tick in pain at the same spot, Waylon can’t help but yelp.

He scrambles for his hand back. It’s really no use. Eddie’s grip is sure and strong, and he has no intention of letting Waylon go.

When Eddie smiles, he steals the light from the bulb above them, from the ones that line the halls beyond them, from the windows that reflect a hazy sunrise. He is overly captivating. A car crash of a person.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you. Keep going.” The apology sounds real.

Waylon’s stuttering heart falters before pumping fast and forceful once more.

They settle back into their earlier positions, only this time Eddie’s head is pillowed on Waylon’s left thigh and one of his hands is circled loosely around Waylon’s hip.

Waylon’s hands in his hair, the musty smell of too much wet heat in one place. Cracked and broken glass. The odd pounding of unfamiliar footsteps. Eddie in the mess holding Waylon still.

For now, it’s enough. It feels like enough.


	4. Detail

Waylon sees the bone rip from his skin like a nail through wood. It’s honestly one of the most disturbing things to happen to him. Past the chasing and the being chased. The homoeroticism that floods the patients around him like some sort of plague. Even Blaire, with his odd power dynamics and one-on-one meetings that stretched on into uncomfortable eternity.

It’s the bone through Waylon’s skin that unnerves him most.

When the elevator stops off at a floor just below Gluskin, Waylon limps off. He’s biting back hungry screams and glancing to his left and right feverishly. His ankle is telling him it’s going to give out soon. It’s going to give out now.

Under the threatening strobe of cortisol and flight that fills Waylon’s head. While he’s on his way to freedom with a patient that seems only relieved when Waylon continues to survive.

That relief is strange. It’s strange, Waylon knows. The mercurial personality behind the Groom is unsettling.

Waylon can understand how one would be charmed by him, but never how they would be lulled into a state of false-safety.

The hairs rise on Waylon’s arms when he’s in a room that feels damningly like a dead-end. He looks around him, eyes flicking over the harshly blunted details of old wood and rotting objects before he finds a locker. Beside it, a door.

Waylon tries the door, first.

Eddie breezes right past. He’s muttering to himself about Waylon. But not really about Waylon. Eddie’s mental loop is more a survey of what could be than what is.

It was terrifying when Eddie mentioned having met before, but he wasn’t able to free himself from the mind-fuck Murkoff instilled then. He won’t be able to now, either. Waylon knows. He knows.

When there’s an insistent creaking on the floorboards just behind Waylon, he panics and jumps inside the locker.

Eddie quiets. His voice was edging on sales-pitch before, but now when he speaks it sounds almost… it sounds triumphant.

Waylon’s throat clicks when he swallows. He tries to hold his breath, but the pain in his ankle punches it out a second later. He’s dead on arrival.

“Ah, the scent of my love’s arbor…,” Eddie trails.

The locker shifts and rumbles with movement.

It happens again.


	5. Contrast

Waylon draws his hair back from his face with his free hand. The other is dripping with blood, limp, barely any feeling left in the fingers. He swallows around the realization that soon the skin will blacken, and then he will be as maimed as anyone else in this hell hole. 

Eddie sits just out of view. He’s stitching a person back up, taking the torn and frayed edges of their pelvis and guiding coarse string through the holes he rips in the skin. 

The person - the man - is dead. Has been dead for a few hours. His stomach is larger, his eyes pressed back into his skull forcefully by a strip of cloth from Eddie’s own shirt. Eddie doesn’t want to be seen. Or, maybe he doesn’t want those he fixes to see. 

Waylon doesn’t know. He can’t move but for the free hand he is given. Can’t think past the pounding in his head. That constant thump reminding him how alive he really is. 

Time passes. Eddie hums that same dilapidated old tune about a wife like his mother, a woman he can be at peace with.

Waylon watches the floorboards beneath himself, but they don’t move. They don’t shift for a long time. When they do, it’s under the intimidating weight of Gluskin himself. 

Swallowing, standing straighter, breathing faster. Waylon’s brow scrunches before he can think to school himself. 

“Waylon?” Eddie asks. 

Eddie’s hands, shiny with blood, move into Waylon’s line of view. He rakes them carefully through Waylon’s rat’s nest of hair. Down the sides of his face, around the curve of his neck. 

Waylon nods. They exchanged names some time ago, and sometimes, Eddie uses them.

  
“Eddie.” He responds, voice ripped raw from the screaming and the panting and the whimpering. 

The surviving. 

Eddie crowds Waylon like a close friend. Or a lover, or a parent concerned. 

Waylon closes his eyes to escape the feeling of it. At the same time, he leans in and blows out stale breath. 

Waylon tries not to shiver so violently.

Together, they stand like this.


	6. Trace

Eddie presses his hands into the soft flesh of Waylon’s hips to hold him still. One sits on top of the other; Waylon’s hair is in his face and he’s breathing heavily.

  
They’ve been in this motel room for a day, now. Just a little over a day. Eddie wanted to do this with Waylon for what felt like years. Waylon was just trying to pass the time.

  
“Ah - ah, okay,” Waylon pants, his eyes closing over.

  
It’s the harsh snap that brings him back down to earth, back down to Eddie, that keeps surprising him. Not that he’s in harm’s way.

  
“You look,” Eddie began, mouthing at Waylon’s bare chest, “beautiful.”

  
Waylon swallows and pants a little harder, rocking up and back, up and back. He hasn’t been fucked since he was in college. It’s a good memory to relive. A little terrifying, now; a little tense. But maybe it makes Waylon harder. Maybe it keeps him there all the more.

  
“I - I. Eddie,” Waylon continues.

  
“Yes, darling?” He hears in devoted return.

  
“Kiss me.” Waylon stutters out.

  
And Eddie obliges.


	7. Remodel

The gnawing whisper of skin on skin arrived by nightfall. It accompanied laughter, gasping, merciless conversation. Things Waylon hadn’t thought about in too long and had no idea how to redefine other than tearing what once was down and starting entirely fresh. 

He got bolder as the night goes on. Usually it was Eddie touching him. Always touching him in the same predictable places. Running his long, large fingers over the subtle curve of Waylon’s hips. Dragging the pads of his fingers over the swell of Waylon’s bottom lip. Digging into the flesh of his neck, commanding his attention with skin to heated skin. Waylon loved it. He knew he shouldn’t, knew they only met each other a few days ago, but he really couldn’t get enough. 

And since they were both locked in his place until Waylon’s apartment building was cleared, why not have a little fun? Waylon chewed his lip as he looked at Eddie. 

They were side by side earlier, but now Waylon’s back was pushed up against the plush couch beneath him and Eddie’s knees were planted down on either side of his thighs. He was straddling Waylon, stealing the light from above them with how large he loomed. 

Waylon had never touched Eddie. Not in this way. Not - not that he hadn’t wanted to, and not that Eddie hadn’t wanted him to. Waylon said it once, and he was too pink to say it again, but he felt like he’d been thrown out of his comfort zone. 

Who would have ever imagined that he would proposition a guy so brazenly and have it go in his favor? 

“I’ve never seen a fish out of water, before.” Eddie commented, his mouth turned up, tone sardonic. 

He leaned in to mouth at Waylon’s neck, just above the place where collarbone connects to collarbone. 

True to form, Waylon gasped and writhed. He was weak for this. Had been since the two of them started speaking, really. All those months ago over the phone. 

“You should say something. You’re turning blue.” Eddie continued. 

Waylon looked up at him and shook his head. He opened his mouth and then closed it. Opened it again only to whine a moment later. Usually, that would be the point where Eddie took pity on him and started to really get them going, but this time he stayed where he was. Firmly planted above. Watching. Waiting. 

“Eddie.” Waylon began, at an immediate loss. 

“Waylon Park.” Eddie returned. 

 His voice was dark and deep, smoother than cashmere and twice as soft. 

“Move.” Waylon said finally. 

His lip was still caught between his teeth. Eddie gave him an unreadable look before obliging, moving off and over to the couch cushion just beside Waylon. Like they were before, almost. Except Waylon wasn’t hard, then. 

Waylon blinked and sighed, his mind caught in an endless highlight reel of things he and Eddie could be doing at that moment if only he could gather the courage and move. Eddie on top of him, hand in his pants. Waylon stretched out on the couch, the two of them riding the lengths of each other, restless and unrelenting. Eddie’s mouth on Waylon’s chest, on his thighs, on his cock. The two of them working together to bring each other what they both desperately wanted, and had wanted for days. 

It was ridiculous. Being able, but not willing. Or willing, but not confident. Waylon whined again, and beside him, Eddie’s right hand twitched to touch. He restrained himself, but just barely. 

“Waylon,” Eddie started again, but this time he didn’t have the chance to continue. 

There was the moment before, and then the moment after. Waylon was on his side of the couch, and then he was scrambling to get into Eddie’s lap like some lovesick puppy, tired and clumsy and desperate for touch. 

“Just - just give me a minute, please.” Waylon whimpered. 

Eddie closed his eyes, almost unable to process how needy Waylon sounded without diving in for more. More of how Waylon tasted. More of how he felt. More, more, more. 

And Waylon was really doing no better. His hands shook when he finally lifted them. First, to touch Eddie’s chest. Palm flat against the clean, soft front of his shirt. Eddie breathed in and out steadily, if a little faster than usual. His eyes flickered from Waylon’s downcast eyes to his downturned lips. He was so full of emotion he could burst. 

Waylon touched Eddie’s chest, and when he was relaxed enough, he pressed clammy fingers into the skin of Eddie’s sharp jaw. Eddie refused to move into the touch, but rewarded Waylon with a sweep of his eyes. Lower than Waylon’s lips, Eddie took in all of the computer scientist. From his worn flannel to his mismatched socks. Here and there and back again.

“Can I touch you, too?” Eddie asked. 

He wouldn’t have, not normally. Not for Waylon or anyone else he’d ever seen and slept with. But Waylon was so interesting. So delicate and flustered. Eddie couldn’t help but weave them further into this complicated little web. 

“Just,” Waylon started again, but he wouldn’t finish. 

He was touching Eddie’s chin, now. The hand at Eddie’s chest was moving down to hold his side. To feel the stack of ribs and muscle, warmth and breath. Waylon was amazed at how touchable Eddie was. He didn’t think he would get the chance to do this. Not anything like this. Especially not, considering how they met. 

Finally, after almost twenty minutes, Waylon leaned in and kissed Eddie’s mouth. The corner of it, the small fissure that eluded to a world of dark and wet. Waylon swallowed and moved backward immediately. 

Eddie caught him just in time to watch Waylon’s eyes grow wide. To hear him squeak. 

“I’m sorry. I wanted to try something,” He breathed, aching. 

Eddie got another hand around Waylon’s belt and tugged it from its loops. Then the fly came apart, and Waylon pushed up so his jeans would move down. 

“I liked where you were going.” Eddie mentioned. 

Offhand, like it couldn’t have mattered to Waylon that much. 

“You were quiet.” Waylon argued. 

“I like to watch you.” Eddie confessed. 

His thumb was swiped over the head of Waylon’s cock. He stroked him a few times just to get the feel of what they would do next. Just to feel Waylon tremble harder. 

“It’s been a while.” Waylon excused himself like this before. 

Eddie really didn’t mind. 


	8. Reference

Waylon is sleeping when Eddie wraps strong arms around his middle and presses wet kisses into the soft line of his neck.

They’re past the worst of MURKOFF. Waylon and Eddie have been free from the asylum for months. They’ve been on the run for as much time, but it’s been more fun than Waylon expected. Even when Eddie turns himself inside out, becomes unrecognizable. Waylon thinks they understand each other well enough now that it’s not an issue when one personality leaves and another arrives.

But still, they aren’t openly affectionate unless it’s late and someone is unconscious. Waylon likes to run his fingers through Eddie’s hair. He likes to whisper something kind into Eddie’s warm skin. Declare impossible trust that runs cold in the shadowy mornings when they must flee from one town to the next.

Waylon is careful. But Eddie is not. His love is heavy-handed, everything he does to express it unavoidably large. From his smiles to his words to his actions.

Of course, Waylon doesn’t know about the actions. He pushes back into them, though. When Eddie sucks a dark purple bruise into Waylon’s neck, he gasps in his sleep. When he wraps his strong fingers around Waylon’s slim waist, Waylon moves into the touch instead of away.

They don’t know each other that well. And that’s fine.

Eddie can still find pure comfort in the small, feathery body that waxes toward him unconsciously.

“Mine.” He’ll whisper at midnight.

Mine, he’ll carve into Waylon’s sleeping skin.

Mine. Mine. All mine.


	9. Marry

**Your love is scaring me,** Waylon tries to say. The sentiment snakes in and out of his mouth, wrapped up in pained gasps and pleasured sighs. He fixes his eyes on Eddie’s sweep of dark hair as it falls in his left eye, skewing the red and the white and the blue. Hiding the horror for just a moment. He is captured by the way they come together in the dark and in the light.

And in the light, it’s so much more pressing, how much he needs to speak. **Your love is scaring me,** Waylon whispers. Eddie doesn’t hear him over his insufferable, looping drone of platitudes and placations. Waylon hears it again and again and again, but he never says he’s tired of it. He values his nose unbroken. 

 **No one has ever cared for me as much as you do,** Waylon mouths into Eddie’s skin when his fingers plunge halfway down his throat and the moon has risen to watch quietly over them.

His heartbeat is pounding in his ears, behind his eyes. He wants to speak louder, but the words refuse to come. 

 **Yeah,** Waylon thinks when they both come together on a dusty, bloody floor. **Yeah,** he thinks again. 

**Yeah. I need you here.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scary Love by The Neighbourhood - give it a listen!


	10. Stitch

Once, Eddie died. Waylon couldn't've stopped it. In fact, he wanted it to happen. They were on opposite ends of the playing field, Eddie having an uproarious offense, and Waylon working with an underdone defense. It was so late in the day that it was early. Waylon's face hurt in a pounding, rhythmic sort of way. He could feel the blood rise to the surface of his skin and fall back. Beat. Beat. Beat. Eddie's hands had been unkind. Characteristically brutal.

He was made of hardened strength. Waylon wondered how the Man Downstairs kept himself so physically fit, but after he saw all the bodies in the gymnasium, it wasn't hard to guess.

Waylon thought he was going to end up with them; the dead men. A childless mother. A groom-less bride. Fated to quietly wait for a new sister to hang beside him.

But he got lucky. Waylon used all of his strength and cut himself down with squirming and disobedience. Eddie swung high as Waylon dropped low.

In so many lifetimes, Waylon and Eddie _are_ beautiful. But just this once, the possibility is always out of reach. 


	11. Shadow

Waylon gasps when he wakes up. It’s quiet in his room, the only sound his own wretched heartbeat. He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, or where he is. But when he blinks frightened eyes open, he notices that he’s been tied down to something. A chair, maybe. Or a cot… it feels like. Some sturdy wood that doesn’t give.

There’s more he should be observing, but Waylon doesn’t have the time. Eddie Gluskin appears from what must have been the rafters for how quickly he is in sight.

“You’re awake,” he breathes, his face contorted in awe.

Waylon breathes faster, his chest rising and falling like cresting waves. Eddie must not notice. He acts as though nothing is wrong.

“I’m awake. What -,” Eddie shuts him up with a leather strap tied tightly behind his head, pulled into his mouth.

Waylon really starts to panic.

More is said. Eddie thinks he’s doing someone a favor by explaining what will happen to Waylon, but only fear and anxiety bids Waylon any sort of welcome. It fills him like his own blood, implied and over-eager. The need to escape pumps in Waylon’s veins; in Waylon’s heart.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

Waylon manically struggles against the bonds. A moment later, Eddie smiles and slices his chest down the center. It’s a small, clean wound that sits between Waylon’s pectorals. He screams.

What else can Waylon do? He screams and flounders, moving desperately away from the hands that dangle above him like some sort of demented mobile dripping red and twitching for more.

“I’ll make the rest fast,” Eddie laughs, watching Waylon work himself into a cold sweat. “just for you.”

If there were music playing in the background, it would be staccato violins all violently out of tune. It would be a piano smashed into a random, irrythmic rhythm. It would be Waylon’s own heart thumping into overdrive.

“Stop,” Waylon tries to yell.

It’s muffled behind the worn leather cutting his tongue in half.

“Hm?” Eddie asks.

His face draws nearer to Waylon’s. He smiles as though nothing is more beautiful than a bleeding, naked man on a poorly-constructed gurney.

“Stop, stop, stop,” Waylon begs.

Over and over like some sort of chorus.

The knife ghosts lower. From Waylon’s chest to his stomach, trailing his own blood behind.

“You want to be with me, don’t you? So badly. I know. I can see it, now,” the patient muses.

Waylon blinks and Eddie’s face is gone, replaced by the ball of his shoulder. His lips are something Waylon would never have expected. They sear where they touch Waylon’s damp neck. Sucking a red mark into his skin. Laving at the bitterly fast pulse.

Eddie moans and then everything happens in slow motion.

The knife breaks skin, once more. Eddie starts to laugh right in Waylon’s ear, harsh and all-surrounding. There is a third man that looks so much like Eddie that Waylon fears he is in hell.

And then, a sickening crack.

It’s hard to understand exactly what happened until Waylon no longer feels white-hot pain lining the center of his stomach. He blinks again and Eddie’s shoulder is gone.

“You shouldn’t be here.” The third man says.

It’s Eddie voice, but it mustn’t be.

 _But it is,_ Waylon’s mind insists.

This stranger walks forward, stepping on something breakable in the process.

Eddie…? Waylon wonders.

The leather strap is removed from his mouth.

Waylon takes in gallons of breath at a time. He feels as though he hasn’t been allowed the grace of breathing in decades. In, out. In, out.

A carbon copy of Eddie Gluskin stands before him. He is unwinding rope from Waylon’s wrists and ankles with gentle, sure hands. Waylon doesn’t know what to think. Has a hard time thinking anything at all.

“Who are you?” He asks after a while of stunned silence.

His savior pitches forward. Nowhere close enough to touch, but Waylon still flinches back.

“A mistake.” He answers. And then, “Get up. It’s time for you to go.”


	12. Perspective

Eddie feels lust in his heart like a bruise that deepens in color every day. His chest aches when he finally touches warm, smooth hands to his own body, guiding Waylon closer. The girl looks unsure; they usually are. Wetness beading and gathering in their long lashes, threatening to spill when Eddie’s mouth is on them at last.

  
He’s waited long enough for this; this moment, this act. A carnal sin made mendable by wedded bliss. Waylon looked beautiful wreathed in white, her too-pink cheeks and swollen lips a heady contrast. Eddie had kissed her then, and he kisses her now with similar excitement.

  
There’s always been a ticking inside of his body. Some internal clock shoved into the core of him counting down and down and down.

Eddie was worried to know what it counted down to, but now that Waylon’s spread beneath him, he realizes all that tireless nerve was unnecessary.

  
Eddie undoes the clasps of Waylon’s wedding dress as she watches, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

  
“You are so beautiful.” He says carefully.

  
Waylon seems to smile, but the expression simmers and fades as Eddie’s scorching fingers meet cream-white skin.

  
They take foreplay seriously for all of five seconds, and then Waylon’s legs are hooked around Eddie’s waist.

  
“I’m so happy, Eddie,” she says serenely.

  
Eddie focuses hard enough and sees the tremor riding her voice.

  
“Oh, my love.” He apologizes, moving backward.

  
He hadn’t even asked how she was feeling. How cruel of him.


	13. License

He knows things would be easier if he stopped fighting, but Waylon can’t help it. There’s thunder pouring down the side of his face, lightning creating a serrated rhythm in his heart. Waylon forces one leg in front of the other, flinching every time he feels the fucked-up crunch of bone and tendon under his frightened weight. His ankle is doing badly, his nerves not much better. Eddie is directly behind him with a butcher’s knife in hand, ready to strike.

So, Waylon stops short. He plants himself on two sure feet and looks at his stalker with angry eyes, chin raised, shoulders squared.

Or, he did five hours ago.

The rope around his fingers and wrists feels like a lover’s touch, full of meaning and intensity. Waylon groans, trying but failing to sit upright. His back is up against the cold wall of what could be a hallway, but what is more likely an office. Eddie is clutching at Waylon’s sides, leaving scorch marks behind. Up from Waylon’s jaw, down his chest. A rhythmic imbalance to his world, but settled. Unrelenting. Realistic.

“Why don’t you just fuck me?” He asks, brazen.

There is white in Waylon’s eyes, water streaming down his face. He doesn’t realize until minutes pass that he was backhanded viciously for the crime of flippancy. Still, Eddie seems eager. Like rum down a depressed person’s throat, his fingers warp what once was.

Waylon leans into them instead of away, thinking of Lisa and how tightly his children would cling to the side of his pants when Waylon finally got home from work. He breathes in and out as though he’s hollow, and taking in air is a practice of just how hollow Waylon can make himself. In, in, in. Can Eddie see it? Can Eddie see all the empty pockets where Waylon worries about his kids or grocery shops with his beautiful wife?

“Tighter than any woman.” Eddie whispers, one finger in Waylon’s ass. 

It hurts because there’s no lotion or lube, no thought or caution. 

Waylon doesn’t care that his stomach is striped by the careless intensity of a man twice his size. His fingers flinch against the intense, meaningful restriction of Eddie’s rope tied around his wrists.

“Hhh, fuck,” he whimpers, piecing one moment together at a time.

Waylon was not the woman in the locker, this time. Rather, he was the one who came down the steps at the wrong time. Who accumulated a few misshapen bruises and cuts, a scab forming over the lid of his left eye. Blaire didn’t own his ass. Waylon was insane, and he was thrown inside an asylum to repent for his crimes.

Eddie didn’t like the way he looked.

But then he’s inside the vocational block again, his ankle badly injured, Eddie’s sure hands stitching him back together.

Waylon’s so damn happy with the outcome that he drops to his knees, but Eddie slits his throat before Waylon can even think to gag on his flaccid, over-large cock.

Each arena feels the same. Each version of the characters is the same. The only change is how much friction is added. How much love or hate. No one changes, but their situations can always force them to behave more or less rationally.

Where is your rationale?  


	14. Eventuality

Waylon’s losing a lot of blood. He didn’t realize he could lose so much blood from one wound, didn’t realize he could feel so lightheaded after a handful of minutes would pass. But there are halos of black engulfing the world around him. Blistering pain shrouding each and every one of his nerves. Waylon can’t even breathe around the pain. Each inhale has his body screaming for respite. The oxygen is trapped inside needy, aching lungs.

He moves up from where he’d been lain, but a second later Waylon’s on his back again. His hands shoot out to protect from impact, but there’s no use. He hits the sticky floor with a blunt thud and that breath he was struggling with rushes from him.

Eddie’s voice is far away. He sounds horrified by what he’s being made to deal with. Waylon thinks he can relate; he’s never been so completely bathed in agony before.

* * *

 

“You nearly died,” an inquisitive voice says.

Waylon blinks up from where he’d been examining his clasped hands, clears his throat, and nods. He feels uncomfortable in this chair. It’s nice, but it doesn’t suit the environment around him. Almost like numbers inside of someone’s lucid dream.

“A couple different times.” He answers steadily.

Though, one was much worse than the others.


	15. Warmth

It’s dark in this corner of the asylum. There are hardly any sounds but the occasional creaking of mildewed floorboards overhead, and even then, Waylon is sure that’s more from the ghostly chill rocking the old place than it is an actual inhabitant. People have become scarce, fleeing the second they were shown a clear exit.

Although, he’s not alone. Eddie’s been by his side for the last few hours. There are bruises and cuts riddling his body. His eyes look bleak, his expression void of any hearty emotion. Waylon’s not good at reading people at the best of times, so now, he’s completely lost.

They started this pact because Waylon needed protection and Eddie needed a thread to follow to keep himself from careening back over the edge.

Waylon sought to give him that thread, but for the most part it was Eddie keeping himself in check. Cracking his knuckles and counting under his breath. Twisting his wrists forward and back in what looks almost painful a motion.

Lisa used to twirl her hair when she was worried. Waylon thought he could recognize a nervous tic when he saw one, but even still, he feels bad.

Cold and shaking hands reach feebly to wrap around Eddie’s own much larger hands. They’re somehow warm. As rough as Waylon remembers.

Eddie looks up from where he’s been staring aimlessly. There are emotions in his eyes but Waylon can’t make them out. Not when the darkness surrounding them is so swallowing. When the bitter crash of more damaged wood sings to them both, unsettling Waylon to his core.

Very slowly, Waylon brings Eddie’s hands up from his lap to rest just in front of Waylon’s mouth. He kisses the abused skin softly. Eddie gasps and Waylon presses his cheek to once-twitching fingers.

“Won’t be long now,” he whispers.


	16. Collision

Three fingers deep in Waylon’s ass and Eddie comes to, blinking back false images of blushing women and a clear slick that he took as encouragement. Eddie sputters and steps back, the action immediate. 

“Why’d you stop?” Waylon asks beneath him, wiggling his hips in an attempt to close the gap between Eddie’s shaking hand and his needy body. 

Eddie swallows and shakes his head. There’s clear and bright confusion in his eyes. It covers the lust from before, marking the sex they were having unread; digging Waylon’s chest empty and filling it with anxiety. 

He _should_ feel anxious, Eddie thinks. He _should_ feel anxious. How could Waylon not have known? Not have seen? Was he really so blinded by what he’d wanted from Eddie that he was willing to turn a blind eye on the fact that he wasn’t actually with Eddie at all? The accusation slapped Eddie in the face, brought his rational thoughts down below their feet. 

“Eddie? What’s going on?” Waylon asks. 

 He shifts to sit up, hands crawling to either side of the bed in order to find something to cover himself with, but he’s too slow. In a flash, Eddie is baring down on him, teeth flashing in a grimace, all strength given to the vice-like grip around Waylon’s left wrist, baring down on his right shoulder. Eddie’s furious with him. He can barely breathe, barely think. Can’t talk. Where the fuck does Waylon get off? Thinking he can use Eddie like this?

“Eddie,” Waylon gasps. 

He looks afraid. Good. He should be. 

Eddie looks down at his own chest and realizes he’s clothed, right down to his socks and shoes. It’s a little better than what could have been. Waylon wasn’t - at least he wasn’t - Eddie shakes his head and squeezes Waylon’s wrist so hard he thinks he hears the bone grind. 

“What the hell were you doing, darling?” He seethes, lips curved up in a manic smile. 

It’s what fear does to Eddie Gluskin. It forces him to perform; he has Murkoff to thank for that. 


	17. Score

Waylon barely has time enough to raise his hand in defense before he’s being hit again. Knuckles score his bottom lip, grinding bone into breakable skin and rattling his brain.

He can’t think; doesn’t know what to do next other than protect himself with his arms. But they’re feeble excuses for shields, and Eddie plows past them.

Again; he hits Waylon’s left temple, now. It feels like a gun’s gone off inside his head.

Waylon slurs out a ‘stop’, but it means nothing. Eddie can’t hear him.

An uppercut, a right hook, three more solid punches to Waylon’s face and neck, and then he’s on the ground. His hands are shaking so badly. He can’t get back up. His vision is swimming, everything turned rightside up and upside down simultaneously.

“Come here, you little whore,” Eddie growls.

The world grows dim.


End file.
